In considering instructional simulations for your courses, it is important to understand that the foundation for including instructional simulations already exists in many economics courses. For example, an instructor using a simulation in an intermediate macroeconomics economics course would devote considerable class time to explaining the specific structure assumed by the simulation. In the absence of the simulation a general discussion of macroeconomic modeling would still be included in the course.

Finally, the mathematical model that powers a simulation is sometimes captured by a spreadsheet. Role playing behavior is often called a game, and experiments are often based on game designs. This means that the same instructional example may be described as a simulation, a game, or an experiment, depending on the context.